Working Through Fear

Welcome To Your New Home

I am taken to a small room off the Entrance Corridor when we get through the doors. I tried to refrain from looking at the cells, hearing the noise of the prison, but it didn't work.

There is a cubicle at the side of the room, a threadbare curtain in front of it.

I'm pushed towards a seat in the centre of the room, and I sit down. I don't sit on the edge, nervous and cautious. I sit comfortably, because I'm not going to show fear.

Someone is pulling something out of a cupboard at the side of the room. I don't look over.

Instead, I focus on the bricks that make up the opposite wall, their colour, their texture. Any detail I can remember. It might be helpful if I ever decide to try again.

I would plan meticulously if I did. More meticulously than last time. I would probably ignore the Prophecy. I've had time to think about it, what Scorpius said, and the logic of it.

It isn't logical. That's the logic of it. Everything that the prophecy needed to be completed, I did incorrectly. He told me what I had to do. And he told me incorrectly.

When Spares are spared

I tried to spare a spare. Not spares. There's a difference. A now-obvious difference.

When time is turned

I did that. Until I broke the Time-Turner.

When unseen children murder their fathers

I tried to force an unseen child to murder his father.

Then will the Dark Lord return.

Almost nothing I did to complete the prophecy was right.

And any Seer who sided with Harry Potter would not call my father the Dark Lord.

Maybe I always knew, and never wanted to admit to myself.

He made it up.

He made it up to give me a purpose, a way back.

He made it up to get what he wanted from me.

And, somewhere, I'd always known that.

The guard returns from the cupboard with a folded pile of brown robes, setting them down in front of me. I eye them distastefully, and then look up at the guard.
"Put these on," he grunts, pointing at the cubicle.

I stand up slowly, picking up the robes and walking towards the cubicle.

The robes are surprisingly comfortable as I slip into them, folding up my other clothes through force of habit and walking back to the chair. I put the robes on my lap as I sit down again.
"Take off your ring," the guard says firmly.

I don't move. My ring is the only part of myself that I chose, that and my tattoo. And I didn't choose why I needed it.

I don't choose anything. And I never have. Sometimes, I know I'm used to it, know I don't care anymore, know I'll always be a prisoner of some form or another. But then I start to resent others. Because they have what I never had, and never will have.

They have a choice in what they do, who they are, what they're seen as.

He decided what I did. My parents decided who I am. And the world decides who I am seen as.
"Take off your ring," the guard says, slightly angrier this time.
"No," I say quietly. "I want to keep my ring on."

The ring in question, a plain, cheap, pewter band with a small feather in place of a stone, protected from damage by magic, on my middle left finger, is the only thing I have left of the only vaguely enjoyable period of my life. I don't want to let it go. I'm not ready to let it go.
"Take it off," the guard growls, "or I will force you to."
"Please," I beg. "Please let me keep it. It's the only thing I have. Please."
"It's not permitted. Take it off."
"No," I shake my head again, curling up my hand and putting my right hand over the ring.

I know it will barely do anything, but I need to do something. I don't want to lose myself.

I don't want to lose my Augurey.

The guard sighs and picks up his wand. I flinch slightly as he points it at my hand.

He mutters something and my hand freezes. I can't move it, can't stop him as he moves my right hand and pulls the ring off my left middle finger.
"Please," I whisper. "Please, that's all I have left."
"May I remind you that you are in prison," the guard mutters. "You are being punished."

I nod. I will not break. I will not plead, apologise, act that I regret trying to bring my father back. Not when he is still looking at me as if he despises me because of who I happen to be.

It's not my fault that I have become the villain. I was viewed as such anyway. And it's so much better to scare people than be scared of people.

-
When they take me to my cell, about fifteen minutes later, I attempt to get a decent idea of how the fortress is set out. I'm not saying that I will try again, but it's always a possibility.

And anyway, I have all the time in the world now to consider how to do it, so that I am successful, and so that I hurt fewer. After all, I do not want to spill magical blood. As my father said, I do not want to spill magical blood.

My cell is nearly bare, a iron bedstead in one corner, pressed against the wall, a small screen on the other side, and a window in the middle. It's nearly bare, but it's nothing smaller than anything I've had before.